The last moments of the night passed slower than the rest…but they had come. He had shot the werewolf a third time as it tried to rise, but now dawn was coming, and Thomas had ventured to the cavern’s entrance to watch the yellow orb glow brighter as it rose. He sat staring, watching the now clear, blue horizon light up with the coming of the sun. He heard a cough from behind him, in the pit.
He went to the edge and looked down in fascination as the werewolf dropped to the floor, (having evidently regenerated after the third shot to the head), then spasmed and lurched back and forth on its side. The werewolf’s thick, black fur began to glisten in the glow of the chem-lites. A thick liquid was oozing from its skin—up through the fur, quickly covering the entire body. The beast raised a hand into the air and spread its fingers, and Thomas could see that the oozing, glistening film was not a liquid at all, but was more like a gel. As the hand opened, the gel clung to its fingers, momentarily making the hand appear to be webbed.
Within moments, the gel covered the whole body. The beast silently thrashed about, and Thomas imagined that if it could have made a sound, it would have been a scream of agony. Its head shook violently, and its arms and legs flung awkwardly in all directions—the gel-like film clinging to them all the while.
The film had slowly formed into what could only be described as a sack in which the werewolf was now trapped. Thomas heard faint cracks and pops, understanding that the creature’s bones were changing shape and size. The thing finally stopped thrashing about and then lay still…but the body still twitched with movement as the last of the bones and muscle changed, the thick fur retracted, and the beast began to transform back into man.
Thomas watched with a morbid fascination. Though the filmy, clear sack covered the body, he could make out the almost-human form within. Where there had been a dark beast under the film just moments ago, resided a smaller, thinner form, lighter in color. The gelled sack began to lose its continuity, and began a quick change into a perfectly clear liquid, which settled on Jeremiah’s naked body and on the ground around it. Thomas stared in amazement as the liquid then disappeared from the ground, as if by magic.
Alastair coughed and his body twisted. He rolled onto his back, grasping at something protruding from his open mouth. He coughed, and reached both hands up to his face to pull at the protrusion as he stood up. Thomas remained fixated on the gory scene as Alastair pulled something long and slender from his throat. The naked man pulled at the ‘thing’ until it was nearly hanging arm’s length from his mouth, and then he suddenly bent over and pulled harder, convulsing as if he were ill. With a sickening ‘pop’, a small, translucent sack, filled with…something…came from his mouth to dangle at the end of the cord to which it was attached.
Alastair coughed again and gasped for breath. He fell to his knees, still gasping. He remained there for a long moment, then slowly raised himself to his knees and stood up, looking around, undoubtedly puzzled. He saw Delmar’s torn corpse only a few feet away, and grimaced, backing away as if repulsed by the site. He looked around the cavern, and then he smiled. He looked at Delmar again, and the smile grew bigger. He ran over to the other side of the pit, looking left and right, seeming to be puzzled. Ah, Thomas thought, he is looking for me. He believes he killed us all... but then where is my corpse? Alastair looked around, grimacing, teeth gritted. Finally, he looked up.
“Dear God,” Alastair said softly as he saw Thomas grinning down at him.
“Which God do you speak to, Alastair? Certainly not my God, because no God of mine would have ever created a creature such as you.”
Alastair stared at Thomas but said nothing, suddenly embarrassed at his nakedness. Thomas was prepared for that, and tossed a pair of neoprene leggings and a neoprene shirt down into the hole. “Put those on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Snow Eagle, come in. Do you read me?”
Snow almost jumped from his pilot’s seat. He had finally given in and dozed off—the radio jerking him from his slumber. He rubbed his eyes, then smiled when he saw it was light outside. He fumbled for the radio.
“This is Snow, over.”
“This is Deluth. Do not lift off yet. I repeat, do not lift off yet. I am close to the coordinates of the area where the two thermals were located. Stand by.”
“How is the team? I heard weapons fire not long after you left me here.”
After a long silence, Deluth answered, “Just stand by, Lieutenant.”
Snow frowned, knowing that meant things were bad. “Roger, Captain.”
“Deluth out.”
Deluth staggered a bit as he made his way to the coordinates. He checked his GPS again, and was glad to see he was within a hundred meters. Though his body had healed rapidly, he found that he sometimes lost control of his legs. They would jerk and twitch violently. Spinal damage, he thought. Not that it mattered. He was a dead man walking. He wished the werewolf had ensured he was dead—or that Kaley had—before leaving him. He hadn’t been, and had regenerated. He was infected. He had two choices now. Either submit to another team and undergo the horrors of the labs and their tests, or kill himself in a manner that he could not regenerate from.
He checked the GPS again, then moved the MP-5 out of his way. The weapon kept falling back over his shoulder. He took a moment to re-sling it across his back so that it was solidly in place. He would not need it now…not in broad daylight. Besides, he had his pistol and it was full of ammo.
He reached the coordinates in a matter of minutes and stood in place, looking all around the snow-covered forest. There were small hills, large boulders, and huge rocky outcroppings. A large cliff facing caught his eye. He looked up the tall sheer wall, then back down—and saw the entrance to a cavern. That’s why they disappeared, he thought. They took shelter inside. He unslung the MP-5. Maybe he might need it after all.
Alastair hesitated, then gave Thomas a half nod and started to put the shirt and leggings on.
“Those were Daniel’s. You can thank him, not your deity.”
After putting them on, Alastair looked back up at Thomas and held out his arms. “Listen, Thomas…I surrender. I won’t resist. You can take me to the authorities.”
Thomas actually chuckled at that. “I know that you don’t think it’s going to be that simple.”
“Well, then, Thomas…what do you plan to do with me? Shoot me? I think you know how well that will work. Do you have the stomach—or the time—to tie me up and burn me at the stake?”
Alastair was banking on rescue parties coming to check out the burned cabin, thus sweeping the area and finding them.
“What happens to you depends on you.”
That puzzled Alastair. He shrugged and then sat down and leaned his back against a large boulder near the center of the pit. He began to rub his bare feet. “My feet are always the worst, you know—well—after the horrible taste goes away. My feet always feel as if someone beat them with a stick. Strange, isn’t it?”
Thomas ignored the comments. “What I need from you are answers. Now, because you know what I need…and want…you have something to bargain with.”
“My only cards on the table are my life.”
Thomas nodded. “You tell me what I need to know, answer my questions and make me believe you are telling the truth…and I leave you in this pit and swear to the Mounties that it was you. I mention nothing about monsters….just that it was you.”
Alastair shook his head. “You are such a horrible liar.”
Thomas grinned and cocked his head sideways. “I haven’t had the years…the decade of practice that you have.”
Alastair quickly popped to his feet and began pacing, a finger in his mouth as if he were chewing a nail. He paced back and forth, never taking more than a few steps in any direction.
“Either you agree to pass some information to me—satisfy my morbid curiosity—or I simply end you. Like you said…I don’t have a lot of time.”
Alastair stopped. “You would never allow me to live.�
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“I swear that you will be found by the authorities here in this pit and they can decide your fate. You are then free to do whatever you can.”
“You know I would come after you someday.”
“Oh, I would hope so,” Thomas said.
Alastair chuckled. “You have changed just since yesterday, my boy…”
Thomas reached down and picked up his rifle, taking careful aim. Alastair threw up his hands but he was too late. Thomas fired the rifle and the bullet slammed into Alastair’s left thigh, spraying blood behind the man. Alastair screamed in agony as he fell backward to thud hard on the cold, clammy floor of the pit.
He lay there for a long moment, stunned, and then sat up and placed one hand on the entry point and the other on the exit wound. Thomas had been careful not to hit bone.
“How’s that change working out for you, Alastair?” He asked. He laid the rifle down. “Delmar probably has something to help with the bleeding. His belt, maybe.”
Alastair cursed Thomas, tears in his eyes—but he did reach through the pile of gore that had been Delmar Forsythe, pulling his military-style belt free. Thomas watched him as he tried to stop the bleeding.
“I’m guessing that will keep you down for maybe fifteen minutes—but I am hoping it will end your sour tone and your mockery. I just can’t abide it right now.”
Alastair whimpered, tightening the belt around the wounds. The man was covered in blood, now—the clothing Thomas had given him was bright red with it.
“So,” Thomas said, his voice echoing through the pit, “You tell me the things I want to know, and I leave you here to your fate. But you will have to convince me that you speak the truth…or the deal is off.” He sat down then, cross-legged, and lay the rifle on the ground beside him.
“You let me out, now, and we have a deal.”
Thomas laughed. “You dictate no terms.” He grimaced and bared his teeth. “This is your last chance, monster. It’s now, or you die…and you don’t get to come back.”
Alastair was beaten. He knew he was beaten from the moment he saw where he was…and where Thomas was. He had no choice…he had not alternatives. So, he did what any coward would do….he cooperated and hoped that Thomas would keep his word…though he did not believe it.
Thomas learned a lot in the next twenty minutes, and he was convinced that the generalities were all true. Alastair was so conceited and in love with himself that he could not resist actually trying to entertain Thomas—to astound and shock him—and he had succeeded. His ego had forced him to tell the truth and to brag.
Alastair explained his life…from his boyhood in Scotland to his Wall Street failures during the Great Depression…to his brief attempts at family, all ending the same way. He explained his research into the curse of the werewolf and the little that he had found that panned out. There had been other werewolves, too…only one that Alastair had not come back to kill later, preventing them from spreading the curse…that one man had set in motion everything here, or so Alastair said. Thomas understood enough to know that Alastair had ruined this cozy part of his life when he became angry enough with the poachers to allow his monster to attack them. No, Alastair would take the blame for nothing. He was a victim, always.
When he had been bitten, it was true, he was the victim…and if the story of his immediate attempt at suicide was believable, and Thomas thought it was, then he had tried to do the right thing. His effort was fleeting, though, and inevitably, the monster had meshed with Alastair, and the two had become one.
Thomas learned that in the beginning it was usually the cycle of the moon that changed the cursed, though there were rare exceptions. Just before the full moon and for a day or so after, there was no control over the change…no possibility of NOT becoming the werewolf. During the other nights, without anger or stress, Alastair could prevent the change. He’d even prevented it a few times by using the tranquilizer on himself just before the moon rose a few days prior to its zenith…but it had only worked the once.
The man tried to act as if he were sorry for the trail of bodies he’d left all over the world, but it was clearly a lie. If anything, the claims were a boast.
He spoke of one detective in New York in the mid 1950’s who had found him out and had come after him…even using a silver bullet. Alastair captured the man and bound him in the sewers below the city. The detective had watched helplessly as Alastair had changed into the beast, and then sat defenseless as he was devoured alive.
Through the years Alastair had tried on several occasions to end his life…each being a feeble effort. And on the note of the death of a werewolf, Alastair pointed out that the best thing to do was sever the head and burn the body…and if that wasn’t possible, sever the head and keep it elsewhere….destroy it if nothing else. Silver worked, of course, but if it was removed from the corpse, or fell from the bones when the flesh rotted…the body could rebuild itself. He had recounted how his body quickly returned to life inside the morgue once he stabbed himself with the dagger…the same dagger that Thomas had at his side right now.
Thomas was astonished at how quickly and easily the information came from Alastair. It was almost as if the man had longed to explain it all to someone, but never had the chance.
There was a pause in the conversation when Alastair reached the point of his current wealth, home, and the recent—unpleasantness (what he called the past days events). During that long pause, a movement took Thomas by surprise.
Alastair saw Thomas’s gaze quickly shift to the limp form of the Siberian Husky. The dog lifted its head and whimpered, then rolled and tried to stand. Jack’s legs would not hold him, so he slumped back down. Thomas’s mouth dropped open and his chin shook as he held back tears and tried to think of what to do next. Before Thomas could act, Alastair had limped over to the dog.
Thomas thought at first that Alastair was going to help Jack—but he remembered that the man helped no one but himself. As if on cue, Alastair shouted to Thomas that if he wanted Jack alive, he would throw his weapons into the pit and lower a rope. Thomas saw Delmar’s K-bar knife in Alastair’s hand, and realized that Alastair must have found the knife on Delmar’s body while removing the belt. Alastair held Jack’s head down. Jack struggled furiously, squirming and whimpering, but ran out of energy and went limp, whining softly. Alastair held the knife high in the air, signaling to Thomas that he was ready to strike.
Thomas reacted quickly, and calmly—and probably just as Alastair presumed he would. After all, Alastair never believed Thomas would give him a chance to live. So, the Scot made a last effort to save himself—or perhaps took the opportunity to destroy something else that Thomas loved. With his hand still pressing Jack’s face and snout onto the floor and his knee in the dog’s abdomen, Alastair prepared to thrust the knife downward. Thomas took careful aim, saw the twitch in Alastair’s eyes, and knew the man was indeed going to kill Jack. Thomas fired as the hand began to move.
The shot rang out loud in the cavern as Alastair’s head exploded. The shot hit him in the right temple, blowing out the entire right side of his face and skull. Brain matter and bits of teeth and skin splattered against the rock wall. Jack rolled away, whimpering, and slid down the incline on which he was laying. He was half covered in Alastair’s blood. “That’ll take more than an hour,” Thomas said, mockingly. He called down to Jack in the most soothing voice that he could manage, saying that it would be okay—that everything would be fine, now.
He lowered himself into the pit.
Jack was going to be okay…Thomas was certain. There was a problem with his right hip, but it was not broken. The Husky had suffered a strong blow to the head and Thomas had been happy to see the swelling bump—believing the lump was good sign that there was less damage on the inside. Once Thomas had finished his grueling work in the pit, he placed a snow-filled sealable bag on the dog’s head wound and wrapped it in a flexible bandage. He laughed at his Siberian Husky when he reviewed the handy-work.
“Not my best work, boy,” Thomas said as he stroked Jack’s soft fur. Jack reminded him of a cartoon dog from an old Saturday morning television show. The dog always had his face wrapped up due to a constant toothache. He fought to keep the laughter from tuning into more tears. There had been enough of that. There had been enough of everything…an overkill of every emotion that Thomas had ever known, and it was becoming just as draining as the incidents that had led him here.
The work in the pit had been grisly and difficult. Even with the machete, the work had been difficult. When the time had come to swing the machete down on Alastair’s unmoving form, Thomas had felt nothing—an emptiness of emotion. Doing the same to Delmar was different. The decision to treat Delmar’s body the same way had come after a swath of conflicting emotions, but in the end, he knew it had to be. Delmar had been infected, and Thomas could take no chances that he would regenerate—even though it was impossible to imagine that his friend’s torn corpse could ever come back to life. Violating his friend’s body in that manner had been so repulsive to him that he’d been sick several times…and at first he had scrambled away from the body, unable to go back for several minutes. By the time he was finished he had become emotionally numb, feeling nothing in his heart but a hollow emptiness. He recalled now that the emptiness had actually been comforting.
Thomas changed his blood-soaked clothing but didn’t know what to do with them. He supposed that he would go ahead and act out his plans to go back for more kerosene…and he could simply burn the clothes along with the bodies. He took the sticky bundle of clothing and threw it into the pit…and quickly whirled around as he heard the echo of a footfall somewhere behind him.
A man dressed in a white camouflage jumpsuit stood behind him, his hands above his head. He tried to smile at Thomas, but the grisly scars all over the man’s face made the expression grotesque. Before Thomas could say a word, the man’s knees began to tremble and he fell forward, rolling onto his side. Thomas leapt for the 10-gauge when he saw the man had an MP-5 strapped to his back.
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